


Control (show me how)

by rebbeile



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Spoilers, Spoilers for Star Trek Into Darkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 20:57:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/803195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebbeile/pseuds/rebbeile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has never felt this inevitable before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Control (show me how)

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS FOR STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS. Seriously. You have been warned.
> 
> Title comes in part from Demons by Imagine Dragons, because apparently that’s my song of the moment for this scene.

This is not the way Jim Kirk thought that it would go. 

He’d thought he would go down fighting, with a hole punched red and gaping through his belly, or in freefall above a fiery planet, caught in the irresistible embrace of gravity. He thought he would die adrenaline-fuelled and gasping, trapped amidst the wild throes of a truth too ferocious to deny. 

But the starship beneath his knees is steady. The low thrum of the thrusters vibrates through the metal, and he can see the fluorescent blue light of the freshly realigned warp core through the glass of the compartment. It could almost be an ordinary afternoon, one of those moments when he’s called down to engineering to test out some new theory, only Scotty’s face is tracked with tears and Kirk can’t seem to remember how to breathe. 

He closes his eyes for a brief moment, trying to find that sharply-edged sense of necessity that kept him pushing onwards, onwards and upwards, blasting through every obstacle that dared move into his path. But the ship is safe now and that feeling has banked down low, lost beneath the heat scorching his skin. 

Not like this, he thinks. This isn’t fighting. This is being decimated, burnt alive. He’s sitting helpless while his body stutters and fails around him and there’s nothing in the universe that he can do. There’s no one left to fight. There’s no way to go out blazing, because Khan’s in a crippled ship, far too distant, and Jim can’t seem to pull himself off the floor. 

_Open it,_ he hears, and he almost laughs as he recognises the voice, because of course Spock would be here already. There’s nothing on the ship that escapes his notice for long. 

He turns his head towards the glass and the sight sends a sudden jolt through his chest. Jim knows how to read his first officer, much as he likes to pretend otherwise. He knows each tiny flicker of emotion that filters through Spock’s precisely maintained veneer of control. He’s learnt to extrapolate each twitch of Spock’s mouth and each sharply raised eyebrow. They are the slight nuances of deeper emotions, stripped down and barely perceptible if you don’t know how to look. 

But what Jim sees now is something entirely different. It is stunning; a raw, flaming supernova of expression that draws Spock’s brows horizontal and curves sharply across his mouth, creasing deep lines into skin usually kept carefully blank. 

Spock doesn’t break for anyone, not like this. He does not display himself so openly, so unguardedly. It is beautiful and terrifying and so intensely private that Jim feels almost as if he ought to look away, only he can’t seem to remember how to turn his head. 

So instead he looks, because he has moments left. If there was a time for holding back, it passed long ago.

He can see Spock’s control cracking; he can see the delicate creases around the corners of his mouth and hear the tremble beneath Spock’s words, as though he’s teetering upon the edge. As though one final push would send him toppling over. 

Jim knows exactly what that push would be. He can feel it coming in the panicked stutter of his heart and the agonising burn of blood through his veins. He’s powerless to stop it, and Spock must know that, must understand that Jim hasn’t the ability to fight his way out of this. He’s probably calculated it all, probably knows better than Jim that there’s nothing to be done. That Jim is going to fail, and that Spock is going to fall. 

_I’m scared._

It isn’t what he’d meant to say. It isn’t what he’d wanted to admit to, not now, not with Spock bent shaking before him. But Jim’s mind feels sluggish; he can hear the blood roaring in his ears and he’s certain that if Bones were here to scan him he’d be hearing a nonstop stream of invective, because the readings wouldn’t be pretty. It has never felt this inevitable before, not in those vicious barfights back in Iowa nor in that wild, desperate leap above Vulcan. There’s always been some tiny sliver of hope, and Jim knows how to grab hold of that and run with it and ignore everything else.

There’s nowhere to run here, though. He’s trapped between two walls of glass and breathing in irradiated air. Fighting this would be impossible; there’s nothing to be fought. 

It’s almost like the volcano at Niribu, only Jim’s the one burning up now. And oh, how he’d love to have some of the control Spock displayed then, because Jim wants to go out with his head high, not crippled beneath this crushing, primal fear. But he knows, knew from the very second Spock knelt beside the glass with his expression flayed open, that Spock has none left to give. 

_I want you to know why I couldn’t let you die._

He’s fighting for words now, trying to get them straight in his mind.

_Why I went back for you._

He needs Spock to understand, but he doesn’t know where to begin. What words could possibly encompass all that deep, shocking emotion that he felt when he heard Spock bow before his fate without even trying to fight against it? Jim has minutes left, and he needs, so badly, for Spock to know.

But Spock opens his mouth before Jim can even try.

_Because you are my friend._

And that’s it, Jim thinks, sucking in a shallow breath. That’s all that needs to be said. He thinks of the dim, shadowed memories of their other selves, standing side by side as the years flow by, with the Enterprise solid and steady beneath their feet. He thinks of how painfully fleeting the moments he’s had with his own Spock seem when he has all those long years to compare them to. 

_You always have been,_ Jim thinks, _and always will be._ Just not in this life. Not like this, not with him. There’s no time left for that anymore. 

So he doesn’t give an answer, but instead simply lifts his aching fingers to Spock’s shaking ones and presses with all the strength he has left. It is not enough, not nearly enough, but it is all that they will ever have. 

And then it ends and there’s nothing but the darkness, with one last thought swirling dimly through the black.

_This is not how he’d thought it would go._


End file.
